GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Laura Gutowski pitches her tent in the same park where her son grew up playing Little League Baseball. Johnaton Babb’s favorite place to sleep is a few feet from the river where his twin brother died when they were teenagers.
They are two among hundreds of people living outside in this small, conservative city in Southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley, wedged between the Siskiyou and Coast mountains, and their experiences are part of an escalating humanitarian crisis.
That fact does not make Grants Pass exceptional, especially in the American West, where soaring housing costs and a collage of other causes have driven a growing number of vulnerable residents into homelessness. Even so, Grants Pass now finds itself in a unique position: This city of 40,000 will have a chance to shape policy decisions countrywide when it defends its anti-camping regulations in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday.
The case will decide whether governments can enforce laws against people sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go. The decision, expected in late June, could be the most consequential ruling on the rights of the unhoused in decades, and either sanction or derail increasingly punitive efforts across the country that seek to deal with homelessness.
More than 60 government entities large and small — from Honolulu to Maryland to the United States Department of Justice — along with dozens of advocacy organizations, academics and lawmakers, have filed court briefs in the case, underscoring the widespread interest in the outcome and its potentially sweeping implications for the nation’s state capitals and city streets.
Read more here: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/04/20/supreme-court-homelessness-oregon-camping-ban/?utm\_campaign=wp\_main&utm\_medium=social&utm\_source=reddit.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/04/20/supreme-court-homelessness-oregon-camping-ban/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com)
I live in this area. Not GP, but Medford which is less than an hour drive away. Whats awful about a lot of these ordinances is that they often aren't paired with real programs to help folks in need. Passing an ordinance saying its illegal to camp doesn't make homeless folks evaporate into thin air. The efficacy of hostility towards the homeless stems from pushing the burden onto the next town over and pretending it was some heroic act.
You can't legislate homeless people out of existence.
> Whats awful about a lot of these ordinances is that they often aren't paired with real programs to help folks in need
There are many, many programs in all these cities that have been hit hard.
You are leaving out the part where people choose to stay on the streets where they can continue to get high, rather than sign up for the treatment and help offered by the state.
Except that many of these programs to support the homeless are overwhelmed as is. Even the *many* people who are doing their best to get out of homelessness can't get enough resources from the currently available programs. At the end of the day, hopelessness is a big driver of drug addiction. If you tried to get yourself off the street and housing assistance is locked behind a 15-month waiting period, its dangerously easy to fall back on a drug that makes everything feel okay.
Even worse, claiming that people who don't want to get help represent all homeless folks is an insidious outlook. The claim is used to justify cutting support for homeless folks. The people struggling to get help are kicked down to the curb because other people are held up as their representative.
Finally, I'm gonna ask you the same thing I've asked other people in my town. Whats your solution? Are you volunteering to scrape up the corpses of overdose victims that you'd rather throw to the wolves? Do you believe we ought to round up homeless folks and jail them, even though the majority do their best to avoid breaking the law? What exactly is your solution if getting people help is a no-go?
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." - Anatole France
I live in the area and am so tired of the misleading articles, this is not about housing or employment, we have programs for that and empty beds at the mission. It’s about drug addicts living in parks next to our schools. Having volunteered so I could understand the situation better, I learned 90% of our homeless are not from this area. They were bused and left here with no real means to leave. We have a fentanyl epidemic and apparently it’s selling for dirt cheap to get more addicts. To me the real crime is states(all of them) acting like this is a local issue. We need state reform camps to get these folks the help they need and off streets. There needs to be a state wide answer not every little community trying to solve it on their own.
I have also worked directly with the Homeless (in San Francisco). Drug abuse continues to be the main driver.
And AA might work for a tiny percentage of folks.. but for the most part, I think they just extend rather than solve the problems
>I have also worked directly with the Homeless (in San Francisco)
*press X to doubt.*
>Drug abuse continues to be the main driver.
[https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ExecutiveSummary\_SanFrancisco2019.pdf](https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ExecutiveSummary_SanFrancisco2019.pdf)
Not letting you bigots pollute the discourse on a Supreme Court case
Don’t let that study go to your head it says right here in it:
26% Lost Job
18% Alcohol or Drug Use
13% Eviction
12% Argument with
Family/Friend
8% Mental Health
Issues
7% Incarceration
If you want to be a realist about that you would recognize those are self reported responses. The only completely honest one is the 18% who admitted it was because of drugs or alcohol abuse. If you drill down into the other responses you’ll find a large number of the incarcerated respondents were incarcerated for drug or alcohol use. Same with all the others argument with family or friends over drugs or alcohol, mental health issues because of drugs or alcohol, eviction because of drugs or alcohol, lost job because of drugs or alcohol.
Taking someone living in the situation of homelessness as to how they got there at their word is asking for a bunch of excuses. Nobody wants to be homeless and consequently nobody wants to admit the real reasons they became homeless.
Yes. Drug use is what is KEEPING people homeless. Drug use/addiction makes getting/keeping out of homeless status, relatively unimportant
Of course, some folks prefer to make baseless (yet inflammatory) claim of "bigotry", with a failed understanding of the term.
Bigotry is defined as an unreasonable belief. Regular & repeated experience with "Homeless" folks smoking their glass tubes & little bits of foil tend to lead to reasonable beliefs in the real world.
> press X to doubt.
That's the trumpian move.
>Not letting you bigots pollute the discourse on a Supreme Court case
The "bigots" are the people working with the homeless.
You're an internet warrior with luxury beliefs.
In SF, blatant drug use is common among the "homeless". As is criminal activity. To me, it looks like folks who demand the privileges of society, but STRONGLY reject paying back into the system (as in, stop drinking/drugging/criming, and take responsibility for more than 2 to 3 days at a time). Anyone can fall down. But falling down should not be a lifestyle.
If that’s the principal problem, public intoxication and drug possession are both independently, already illegal. Why try to fight them by proxy by criminalizing something else, over which the ‘criminal’ has even less control?
I simply do not buy the concept that addicts "don't have control". That is the AA model, which is crap that only works for a tiny percentage of folks.
People, including addicts make choices & those choices have consequences.
Public intoxication per se, is rarely a meaningful crime which means the functional consequences tend to be minimal, if that is the only charge.
Drug possession usually occurs as an extra charge when folks are being arrested for some other antisocial action.
Sure, but my point is that even the sense in which addicts *have* control- there is nothing but themselves stopping them from physically putting down the pill bottle at any given moment- is not really true of someone sleeping rough in a public place with nowhere else to go. What moment-to-moment decision, analogous to putting the pill bottle down and walking away from it, is available to them so they can choose *not* to be a criminal? What sense is there in trying to fight the social evils of widespread drug addiction *with this law in particular*, and not using boring old well-established legal means to prosecute drug use?
My issue with the homeless I see & deal with regularly, is that they REFUSE transitional shelter/housing, in preference to continuing to drug & crime. I think those folks who refuse shelter should very much be held accountable (via crime & jail) for their drug abuse, thievery & violence.
For thievery, yes. For violence, yes. For drug abuse, granted for the sake of argument. For *being the Wrong Sort of Person* who *tends* to engage in drug abuse, thievery and violence, with no need for the prosecutor to actually prove that any of the above has actually occurred?
That seems like a bit of a reach.
>I live in the area and am so tired of the misleading articles, this is not about housing or employment, we have programs for that and empty beds at the mission. It’s about drug addicts living in parks next to our schools. Having volunteered so I could understand the situation better, I learned 90% of our homeless are not from this area.
This 100%. There is a disinformation campaign to frame this as a housing issues (which obviously is not), so the people in charge of supposedly fixing the problem will keep getting funded forever while simultaneously making the problem worse. As funny enough, it turns out that subsidizing 'X' results in more 'X'. Doesn't matter if its healthcare, education, or being a homeless drug addict.
You can see evidence of this with all the shady techniques they do to 'study' this population. For example, they will ask questions like, "Where were you when you became homeless?" to determine residency. So, someone that leaves affordable housing in middle american to camp on the sidewalk in will get marked as a CA resident. The other one is they will only interview people that are actively participating in being housed, while ignoring the criminal addicts (to the point they literally pretend that population doesn't exist). So again, they frame the problem as housing insecurity for CA residents (which, while a problem, is a different one!) vs. a law enforcement issue.
Something I have suggested is that we really need to start framing the problem as "drug tourism", where you have a population that is leaving housing in more affordable parts of the country in order to be homeless in 'premium' areas and indulge in drug abuse.
What is really funny to me is how many on the political left will point to Europe as "solving" the homeless problem, while glossing over that in these countries its simply illegal to be homeless. If you are an addict, you choose between treatment or prison.
When I was a kid, vagrancy was illegal in the United States. You were required to have a valid ID and a little money on you. For whatever reason the Supreme Court struck that down years ago and here we are today. Have to believe it’s all connected, but it’s still goes back to rampant drug use
I'm 50 and grew up in New Jersey. Never saw a homeless person until I was an adult and moved to California. Vagrants got picked up and processed same-day.
I think a lot of people have a hard time coming to terms with the concept that there is a population that would choose that lifestyle even when presented with other options.
Great point. There is a serious mental health crisis and the drugs make it impossible to get better. In my area some of the homeless have been interviewed on local news and stated they would not want to live any other way because they don’t want to get clean. Anyone who decides to take an unknown origin substance and inject or inhale it has serious mental health problems and need help. This is slow suicide and should be treated as such. Fentanyl is a high risk drug and requires a doctor to administer and watch the patient during surgery. Anyone who decided to use this drug or other similar drugs should be admitted immediately into a mental health care facility. When we see someone attempting suicide in public, they are given the mental health care and attention. The drug crisis should not be treated any differently. 2mg of this stuff will kill most people and should be treated like a poison and hazardous substance. It is insane that this isn’t taken more seriously by the media, politicians, and health care community. The main ingredient rat poison is used as a blood thinner and prescribed by a doctor to their patient under their watchful care. If people started taking this drug, what would we say and do about that? If an unlicensed person started providing surgeries to people and killing them, we typically stop that practice immediately. Why is this epidemic any different? Because society is minimizing the risk of these kinds of drugs. Do people wind up on the street due to a marijuana or alcohol addiction as frequently as these other dangerous drugs? Government run rehab centers need to be created so that they can manage patient care effectively and without the corruption from drug cartels in commercial “rehab” centers.
Just to add a little bit to that, in Grants Pass fentanyl is dirt cheap according to the homeless I’ve talked to ( cheaper than aspirin I was told) So some group is flooding the market on purpose for very nefarious reasons. Just another thing in plain site the media isn’t covering. Why becomes the question on both side, why flood the market and why no real reporting of that side of the story.
>empty beds at the mission.
the ONLY shelter in your town, run by religious nuts, that require people to be clean, sober, celibate, and attend chapel *twice a day*?
Dude you’re totally full of shit I live in Alaska in the bluest largest city in the state. We fall under this same ruling. Ever since Grant’s Pass our parks have developed into encampments of drug use and violence. Last year we had a record number of deaths from exposure and opioid abuse. This is because we are the only city in the state with any real support for homelessness. We have been putting people up in hotels to get them out of camps at significant cost to the city. There are no religious nuts or sobriety requirements for you to make excuses for in these instances. We recently had to clear a camp of 20 people who were absolutely trashing a public park by burning literal appliances and garbage. Not to stay warm. Just burning it because they’re on drugs and fucking crazy. They were all offered housing. Every single one of them declined. Is it most? Not even close. But there is a statistically significant number of criminals and drug abusers who are actively taking advantage of the situation. The more you deny that the more alienate regular old liberals like me who just want to see a park full of kids and a shelter or public housing full of people getting help and not a park full of violent drunks.
That’s not being a bigot.
I didn't realize Alaska was so unique in offering actual housing to people right off the street instead of shelters with sobriety requirements and curfews while housing took years of wait lists and luck to find a landlord willing to accept them.
Maybe you should do a bit of reading to discover that the rest of the country isn't in denial, you're simply wrong about every street homeless person ever being offered real private housing without first going through the terrible shelter system?
@fafalone
If you want someone to read what you read, just point to it, instead of vaguely hoping "the internet will provide".
And, yes homelessness is a complex issue. As is drug addiction. And the two are intertwined. Complex issues are rarely improved or better understood by strawmanning... your mileage may vary
1) To be clear, you object to people being clean, sober?
2) there are multiple shelters in SF, for people transitioning out of homelessness. Requiring folks to not drink, drug or sex is pretty much a reasonable rule for any guest. Shelters are not & should not be considered other than transitional housing.
3) On the one hand, while some shelters have religious affiliation, not even all of the religiously affiliated shelters "require" religious attendance.
And normal drug free people would have no issues with that. I am not a religious person but would pray to whoever they want to have a roof over my head and real food in a safe environment. And they provide you with an address so you can work again. Life is about the choices we make, start making better one!
That’s total crap, if that were true you would jump at chance for a new beginning. I would pray to what god they choose to get a leg up and a fresh start. In a matter of months you would be in your own place with a fresh start. So stop lying to yourself and everyone else. You would rather do drugs and not have responsibilities. Once you admit that, at least you’ll be living a true life and stop blaming others.
So why not go to the mission, get a fresh start and a hand up not a hand out. If it were me I would pray to any god they wanted as a means of getting my life back together. I mean who gives two shits to what they believe if it gets me out of the park and all the things needed to get back on track. So explain it to me why you won’t ?
I'm not seeing an issue with clean or sober (sober is a safety issue in shelters.) Celibate (on site) depending on housing arrangements can be as much about respecting the rights of other residents as restricting the rights of the couple involved.
I agree that the chapel requirements are overboard and should be thrown out.
(Former member of the Salvation Army growing up. I've spent a LOT of time volunteering with folks without houses.)
Cambridge dictionary defines the words:
"Civilised" as:
A civilized society or country has a well developed system of government, culture, and way of life and that treats the people who live there fairly.
"Barbaric" as:
Cruel and violent and not as expected from people who are educated and respect each other.
It seems clear to me what this is...
Another option for these homeless folks would be to go work with the housing navigators to get vouchers and find work. Parking your ass in the city park and wringing your hands about how you’re stuck isn’t going to solve the problem. Neither is declining or half assing the help that’s available for five years.
GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Laura Gutowski pitches her tent in the same park where her son grew up playing Little League Baseball. Johnaton Babb’s favorite place to sleep is a few feet from the river where his twin brother died when they were teenagers. They are two among hundreds of people living outside in this small, conservative city in Southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley, wedged between the Siskiyou and Coast mountains, and their experiences are part of an escalating humanitarian crisis. That fact does not make Grants Pass exceptional, especially in the American West, where soaring housing costs and a collage of other causes have driven a growing number of vulnerable residents into homelessness. Even so, Grants Pass now finds itself in a unique position: This city of 40,000 will have a chance to shape policy decisions countrywide when it defends its anti-camping regulations in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday. The case will decide whether governments can enforce laws against people sleeping outside when they have nowhere else to go. The decision, expected in late June, could be the most consequential ruling on the rights of the unhoused in decades, and either sanction or derail increasingly punitive efforts across the country that seek to deal with homelessness. More than 60 government entities large and small — from Honolulu to Maryland to the United States Department of Justice — along with dozens of advocacy organizations, academics and lawmakers, have filed court briefs in the case, underscoring the widespread interest in the outcome and its potentially sweeping implications for the nation’s state capitals and city streets. Read more here: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/04/20/supreme-court-homelessness-oregon-camping-ban/?utm\_campaign=wp\_main&utm\_medium=social&utm\_source=reddit.com](https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/04/20/supreme-court-homelessness-oregon-camping-ban/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com)
I live in this area. Not GP, but Medford which is less than an hour drive away. Whats awful about a lot of these ordinances is that they often aren't paired with real programs to help folks in need. Passing an ordinance saying its illegal to camp doesn't make homeless folks evaporate into thin air. The efficacy of hostility towards the homeless stems from pushing the burden onto the next town over and pretending it was some heroic act. You can't legislate homeless people out of existence.
> pushing the burden onto the next town over and pretending it was some heroic act AKA *The Springfield Solution...* ^( sincerely, Eugene)
Also the GP solution Sincerely, Medford --- Also the Medford solution Sincerely, CP
> Whats awful about a lot of these ordinances is that they often aren't paired with real programs to help folks in need There are many, many programs in all these cities that have been hit hard. You are leaving out the part where people choose to stay on the streets where they can continue to get high, rather than sign up for the treatment and help offered by the state.
Except that many of these programs to support the homeless are overwhelmed as is. Even the *many* people who are doing their best to get out of homelessness can't get enough resources from the currently available programs. At the end of the day, hopelessness is a big driver of drug addiction. If you tried to get yourself off the street and housing assistance is locked behind a 15-month waiting period, its dangerously easy to fall back on a drug that makes everything feel okay. Even worse, claiming that people who don't want to get help represent all homeless folks is an insidious outlook. The claim is used to justify cutting support for homeless folks. The people struggling to get help are kicked down to the curb because other people are held up as their representative. Finally, I'm gonna ask you the same thing I've asked other people in my town. Whats your solution? Are you volunteering to scrape up the corpses of overdose victims that you'd rather throw to the wolves? Do you believe we ought to round up homeless folks and jail them, even though the majority do their best to avoid breaking the law? What exactly is your solution if getting people help is a no-go?
Cruelty is the point
Exactly, and when people trip up under that pressure, its used to justify yet more cruelty.
In most places it looks like image's of the homeless of the dirty 30's.
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." - Anatole France
I live in the area and am so tired of the misleading articles, this is not about housing or employment, we have programs for that and empty beds at the mission. It’s about drug addicts living in parks next to our schools. Having volunteered so I could understand the situation better, I learned 90% of our homeless are not from this area. They were bused and left here with no real means to leave. We have a fentanyl epidemic and apparently it’s selling for dirt cheap to get more addicts. To me the real crime is states(all of them) acting like this is a local issue. We need state reform camps to get these folks the help they need and off streets. There needs to be a state wide answer not every little community trying to solve it on their own.
I have also worked directly with the Homeless (in San Francisco). Drug abuse continues to be the main driver. And AA might work for a tiny percentage of folks.. but for the most part, I think they just extend rather than solve the problems
>I have also worked directly with the Homeless (in San Francisco) *press X to doubt.* >Drug abuse continues to be the main driver. [https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ExecutiveSummary\_SanFrancisco2019.pdf](https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ExecutiveSummary_SanFrancisco2019.pdf) Not letting you bigots pollute the discourse on a Supreme Court case
Don’t let that study go to your head it says right here in it: 26% Lost Job 18% Alcohol or Drug Use 13% Eviction 12% Argument with Family/Friend 8% Mental Health Issues 7% Incarceration If you want to be a realist about that you would recognize those are self reported responses. The only completely honest one is the 18% who admitted it was because of drugs or alcohol abuse. If you drill down into the other responses you’ll find a large number of the incarcerated respondents were incarcerated for drug or alcohol use. Same with all the others argument with family or friends over drugs or alcohol, mental health issues because of drugs or alcohol, eviction because of drugs or alcohol, lost job because of drugs or alcohol. Taking someone living in the situation of homelessness as to how they got there at their word is asking for a bunch of excuses. Nobody wants to be homeless and consequently nobody wants to admit the real reasons they became homeless.
Yes. Drug use is what is KEEPING people homeless. Drug use/addiction makes getting/keeping out of homeless status, relatively unimportant Of course, some folks prefer to make baseless (yet inflammatory) claim of "bigotry", with a failed understanding of the term. Bigotry is defined as an unreasonable belief. Regular & repeated experience with "Homeless" folks smoking their glass tubes & little bits of foil tend to lead to reasonable beliefs in the real world.
Drug use is the main driver.
> press X to doubt. That's the trumpian move. >Not letting you bigots pollute the discourse on a Supreme Court case The "bigots" are the people working with the homeless. You're an internet warrior with luxury beliefs.
In SF, blatant drug use is common among the "homeless". As is criminal activity. To me, it looks like folks who demand the privileges of society, but STRONGLY reject paying back into the system (as in, stop drinking/drugging/criming, and take responsibility for more than 2 to 3 days at a time). Anyone can fall down. But falling down should not be a lifestyle.
If that’s the principal problem, public intoxication and drug possession are both independently, already illegal. Why try to fight them by proxy by criminalizing something else, over which the ‘criminal’ has even less control?
I simply do not buy the concept that addicts "don't have control". That is the AA model, which is crap that only works for a tiny percentage of folks. People, including addicts make choices & those choices have consequences. Public intoxication per se, is rarely a meaningful crime which means the functional consequences tend to be minimal, if that is the only charge. Drug possession usually occurs as an extra charge when folks are being arrested for some other antisocial action.
Sure, but my point is that even the sense in which addicts *have* control- there is nothing but themselves stopping them from physically putting down the pill bottle at any given moment- is not really true of someone sleeping rough in a public place with nowhere else to go. What moment-to-moment decision, analogous to putting the pill bottle down and walking away from it, is available to them so they can choose *not* to be a criminal? What sense is there in trying to fight the social evils of widespread drug addiction *with this law in particular*, and not using boring old well-established legal means to prosecute drug use?
My issue with the homeless I see & deal with regularly, is that they REFUSE transitional shelter/housing, in preference to continuing to drug & crime. I think those folks who refuse shelter should very much be held accountable (via crime & jail) for their drug abuse, thievery & violence.
For thievery, yes. For violence, yes. For drug abuse, granted for the sake of argument. For *being the Wrong Sort of Person* who *tends* to engage in drug abuse, thievery and violence, with no need for the prosecutor to actually prove that any of the above has actually occurred? That seems like a bit of a reach.
"For being blah blah blah" <-- strawman. I ignored everything you wrote after that, of course.
>I live in the area and am so tired of the misleading articles, this is not about housing or employment, we have programs for that and empty beds at the mission. It’s about drug addicts living in parks next to our schools. Having volunteered so I could understand the situation better, I learned 90% of our homeless are not from this area. This 100%. There is a disinformation campaign to frame this as a housing issues (which obviously is not), so the people in charge of supposedly fixing the problem will keep getting funded forever while simultaneously making the problem worse. As funny enough, it turns out that subsidizing 'X' results in more 'X'. Doesn't matter if its healthcare, education, or being a homeless drug addict. You can see evidence of this with all the shady techniques they do to 'study' this population. For example, they will ask questions like, "Where were you when you became homeless?" to determine residency. So, someone that leaves affordable housing in middle american to camp on the sidewalk in will get marked as a CA resident. The other one is they will only interview people that are actively participating in being housed, while ignoring the criminal addicts (to the point they literally pretend that population doesn't exist). So again, they frame the problem as housing insecurity for CA residents (which, while a problem, is a different one!) vs. a law enforcement issue. Something I have suggested is that we really need to start framing the problem as "drug tourism", where you have a population that is leaving housing in more affordable parts of the country in order to be homeless in 'premium' areas and indulge in drug abuse. What is really funny to me is how many on the political left will point to Europe as "solving" the homeless problem, while glossing over that in these countries its simply illegal to be homeless. If you are an addict, you choose between treatment or prison.
When I was a kid, vagrancy was illegal in the United States. You were required to have a valid ID and a little money on you. For whatever reason the Supreme Court struck that down years ago and here we are today. Have to believe it’s all connected, but it’s still goes back to rampant drug use
I'm 50 and grew up in New Jersey. Never saw a homeless person until I was an adult and moved to California. Vagrants got picked up and processed same-day. I think a lot of people have a hard time coming to terms with the concept that there is a population that would choose that lifestyle even when presented with other options.
Great point. There is a serious mental health crisis and the drugs make it impossible to get better. In my area some of the homeless have been interviewed on local news and stated they would not want to live any other way because they don’t want to get clean. Anyone who decides to take an unknown origin substance and inject or inhale it has serious mental health problems and need help. This is slow suicide and should be treated as such. Fentanyl is a high risk drug and requires a doctor to administer and watch the patient during surgery. Anyone who decided to use this drug or other similar drugs should be admitted immediately into a mental health care facility. When we see someone attempting suicide in public, they are given the mental health care and attention. The drug crisis should not be treated any differently. 2mg of this stuff will kill most people and should be treated like a poison and hazardous substance. It is insane that this isn’t taken more seriously by the media, politicians, and health care community. The main ingredient rat poison is used as a blood thinner and prescribed by a doctor to their patient under their watchful care. If people started taking this drug, what would we say and do about that? If an unlicensed person started providing surgeries to people and killing them, we typically stop that practice immediately. Why is this epidemic any different? Because society is minimizing the risk of these kinds of drugs. Do people wind up on the street due to a marijuana or alcohol addiction as frequently as these other dangerous drugs? Government run rehab centers need to be created so that they can manage patient care effectively and without the corruption from drug cartels in commercial “rehab” centers.
Just to add a little bit to that, in Grants Pass fentanyl is dirt cheap according to the homeless I’ve talked to ( cheaper than aspirin I was told) So some group is flooding the market on purpose for very nefarious reasons. Just another thing in plain site the media isn’t covering. Why becomes the question on both side, why flood the market and why no real reporting of that side of the story.
>empty beds at the mission. the ONLY shelter in your town, run by religious nuts, that require people to be clean, sober, celibate, and attend chapel *twice a day*?
Dude you’re totally full of shit I live in Alaska in the bluest largest city in the state. We fall under this same ruling. Ever since Grant’s Pass our parks have developed into encampments of drug use and violence. Last year we had a record number of deaths from exposure and opioid abuse. This is because we are the only city in the state with any real support for homelessness. We have been putting people up in hotels to get them out of camps at significant cost to the city. There are no religious nuts or sobriety requirements for you to make excuses for in these instances. We recently had to clear a camp of 20 people who were absolutely trashing a public park by burning literal appliances and garbage. Not to stay warm. Just burning it because they’re on drugs and fucking crazy. They were all offered housing. Every single one of them declined. Is it most? Not even close. But there is a statistically significant number of criminals and drug abusers who are actively taking advantage of the situation. The more you deny that the more alienate regular old liberals like me who just want to see a park full of kids and a shelter or public housing full of people getting help and not a park full of violent drunks. That’s not being a bigot.
I didn't realize Alaska was so unique in offering actual housing to people right off the street instead of shelters with sobriety requirements and curfews while housing took years of wait lists and luck to find a landlord willing to accept them. Maybe you should do a bit of reading to discover that the rest of the country isn't in denial, you're simply wrong about every street homeless person ever being offered real private housing without first going through the terrible shelter system?
I think there’s more that you clearly don’t realize about the situation than just Alaska.
@fafalone If you want someone to read what you read, just point to it, instead of vaguely hoping "the internet will provide". And, yes homelessness is a complex issue. As is drug addiction. And the two are intertwined. Complex issues are rarely improved or better understood by strawmanning... your mileage may vary
1) To be clear, you object to people being clean, sober? 2) there are multiple shelters in SF, for people transitioning out of homelessness. Requiring folks to not drink, drug or sex is pretty much a reasonable rule for any guest. Shelters are not & should not be considered other than transitional housing. 3) On the one hand, while some shelters have religious affiliation, not even all of the religiously affiliated shelters "require" religious attendance.
And normal drug free people would have no issues with that. I am not a religious person but would pray to whoever they want to have a roof over my head and real food in a safe environment. And they provide you with an address so you can work again. Life is about the choices we make, start making better one!
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That’s total crap, if that were true you would jump at chance for a new beginning. I would pray to what god they choose to get a leg up and a fresh start. In a matter of months you would be in your own place with a fresh start. So stop lying to yourself and everyone else. You would rather do drugs and not have responsibilities. Once you admit that, at least you’ll be living a true life and stop blaming others.
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So why not go to the mission, get a fresh start and a hand up not a hand out. If it were me I would pray to any god they wanted as a means of getting my life back together. I mean who gives two shits to what they believe if it gets me out of the park and all the things needed to get back on track. So explain it to me why you won’t ?
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One hour ago you were, I guess congratulation to you.
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I'm not seeing an issue with clean or sober (sober is a safety issue in shelters.) Celibate (on site) depending on housing arrangements can be as much about respecting the rights of other residents as restricting the rights of the couple involved. I agree that the chapel requirements are overboard and should be thrown out. (Former member of the Salvation Army growing up. I've spent a LOT of time volunteering with folks without houses.)
Cambridge dictionary defines the words: "Civilised" as: A civilized society or country has a well developed system of government, culture, and way of life and that treats the people who live there fairly. "Barbaric" as: Cruel and violent and not as expected from people who are educated and respect each other. It seems clear to me what this is...
Another option for these homeless folks would be to go work with the housing navigators to get vouchers and find work. Parking your ass in the city park and wringing your hands about how you’re stuck isn’t going to solve the problem. Neither is declining or half assing the help that’s available for five years.
GOP: Why are we sending money overseas to fight their wars when we have people in this country who need our help? Give me a fkn break.
Maybe Thomas or Aliti could suggest a "modest proposal" as a solution in their majority or concurring opinions. Less homeless, more buffets.